Study: Medical marijuana greatly effective for treating pain, nausea

Scientific findings from Israel could further prove that medical marijuana might help solve America’s opioid epidemic.

In a medical cannabis study presented last week at the International Jerusalem Conference on Health Policy, researchers from Ben-Gurion University found a vast majority of pain and nausea patients to have positive effects from marijuana treatment, the Jerusalem Post reports.

Experts examined 399 new medical cannabis users, which included 321 non-cancer patients and 78 cancer patients, over a two-year period of treatment.

A remarkable 99.6 percent of the patients surveyed turned to medical cannabis treatment when conventional medications became ineffective against treating their symptoms, while more than 90 percent of patients reported significant improvement in dealing with pain and nausea.

The findings further support the idea that cannabis can be an effective tool in reducing the nation’s startling amount of opioid abuse and overdoses. A 2015 study from Columbia University found that cannabis helped painkiller addicts to complete an 8-week detox program, while a medical study published this year found a remarkable reduction in painkiller-related deaths in states with medical marijuana laws in place.

Moreover, the Centers for Disease Control has recently urged doctors to stop screening opioid addicts for marijuana use.

“Clinicians should not test for substances for which results would not affect patient management or for which implications for patient management are unclear,” the CDC states. “For example, experts noted that there might be uncertainty about the clinical implications of a positive urine drug test for tetrahyrdocannabinol (THC).”

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